Dark Was The Night
by Lost Constellations
Summary: Little does Sora know that the footsteps and ghostly clarinet playing at night in the old house he has just moved into will lead to something much more sinister.
1. The Beginning of The End

Sora stared up at the looming silhouette of the old house from the backseat of the car. The thought of moving had terrified Sora. It had terrified him the past four times he had had to move. The general air of spookiness that hovered over this house had not done anything to subside his nerves. Sora had just turned nine when his mother told him that they would have to move, and he would have to leave all his old friends behind. Again. She said that his friends could keep in touch with him, just like she had said every time they had moved. But no one ever kept in touch.

"The movers should be here any minute," his mother said, stepping out of the car and scanning the road for any sign of a moving van.

Sora stepped out of the car and onto the gravel driveway to stand next to his mother. He glanced up at the house again. It looked empty and sad, and just a little scary against the grey sky.

"Why don't we go in? It looks like it's going to rain. You can explore while we wait," his mother said as she grabbed his hand and led him to the front door. Sora would have rather waited outside. His mother pulled out her key and unlocked the door. The second she opened it, an eerie feeling washed over Sora and he felt unwelcome. His mother closed the door, and then took up a spot in front of the window to look for the movers. She turned to Sora. "Go on, explore," she coaxed him, shooing him into the house with her hands.

He reluctantly turned from his mother and faced the large oak staircase. He took a deep breath, and then slowly started to ascend. Almost every step creaked under his weight. Once he was at the top, he was faced with a closed door. He opened the door and checked the room. It was empty. Every room he checked was empty, and he had checked all of them, until there was only one room left at the end of the hallway. Sora was about to open the door when he thought he heard music playing. It was so faint that he was not sure it was even really there, and that maybe he was just imagining it.

After a few minutes, he wrote it off as noise from one of the neighbors, or that maybe his mother had found a radio. He pushed open the door to the room and walked inside. Something in the corner caught his eye. As he approached, he realized it was a book. He picked it up and paged through it. There were all sorts of drawing scribbled in ink on the slightly yellowed pages. The drawings were not spectacular, but they were still good. Sora decided he liked them, even though they all seemed a little sad.

He heard his mother call for him, and footsteps on the stairs. He spun around and hid the book behind his back. Sora could not explain why, but he did not want to share the book with anyone. His mother pushed the door open, and smiled.

"Oh, there you are. Did you find anything interesting?" she asked.

"No," he replied.

"Oh well. The movers are here. Come help unload the van."

"Okay, mum," he said with a weak smile.

She smiled and turned to leave. He watched her climb down the stairs before he frantically looked around the room for a place to hide the book. A loose floorboard that stuck out just a little above the rest caught his eye. He was in luck; the floorboard was easily lifted up. He hid the book and then put the board back in place. The book was now his own special little secret.

--------------------------

Eight Years Later

Ominous storm clouds had begun to roll in over the horizon, looking dark and heavy with the promise of rain. It was almost inevitable that it would rain during Sora's walk home. He had to stop at the bookstore on his way so that he could pick up a book on Russian culture. For History class, of course. It was his least favorite subject. In Sora's mind, the past was irrelevant, whether he knew about it or not made no difference.

School itself was not Sora's favorite place. He was a bit of a loner. Even though he was often very cheerful and kind, he had only two friends, a girl named Kairi and a boy named Roxas. Other than that, he only had a few acquaintances, whom he had mostly met through Roxas and Kairi.

A bell rang softly as he pushed open the door. The bookstore was relatively small in comparison to some of the larger chain stores. The storekeeper looked up over his book and gave Sora a disinterested smile, then returned to his book. There was music playing softly in the shop, drifting dreamily through the air.

Sora made his way to the History section of the shop in the back. He passed two other customers browsing casually through the plethora of books. There was an entire shelf dedicated to History books. Sora skimmed the tags taped onto the shelves, just below the books with corresponding subject matter.

The sound of a clarinet danced through the air, singing a beautifully sweet and sorrowful solo. Sora immediately froze. He recognized the song. He had heard the same terrifyingly beautiful clarinet part playing softly in the dead of night in his house. It spooked Sora, and he knew he needed to leave. He turned and made his way quickly out of the shop and into a barrage of thick raindrops falling like miniature freight trains from the sky.

He did not want to return home, but he had no choice, as all the restaurants and cafés had closed, and he had no intention of remaining in the rain. With a sigh, he turned the corner and began the twenty-minute walk home in the rain.

He lived in an old house that was just on the outskirts of the town. The house was a century old at least. Sora had gotten weird feelings the second he had laid eyes on the house. Within the first week, he was already hearing disembodied footsteps, which were followed by doors and cabinets opening and closing, and miscellaneous items going missing. The worst part was when he would awake in the middle of the night to the faint sound of a clarinet playing its melancholic melodies. Before moving here, he and his mother had moved frequently, and Sora had been certain that they would not stay here long. Eight years had passed, and still his mother had showed no signs of moving.

Lightning lit up the sky with fierce intensity, and Sora could see the outline of his house rising above the line of trees for a split second. Sora quickened his pace, figuring that it would be safer in his house than out in the storm. As if to drive home the point, monstrous thunder shook the ground.

In no time, Sora was at his front door and fumbling with his keys. The raindrops had begun to fall with a newfound anger, and the sting they caused on Sora's back only made him move faster. He got the door open at last, and he rushed in and quickly shut the door. The minute he did, he felt very on-edge. His mother always worked late, and she would most likely not return until after he had gone to bed, leaving him alone in a big empty house that was most likely haunted.

Sora crept over to the bathroom, and peeled off his wet clothes. He hung them to dry over the bath, and then decided to go into the kitchen to look for something to eat.

Sora was crouched down and searching through the fridge for food when he felt the soft tickle of breath on his neck. He spun around, searching for the culprit, but there was no one there. "Who's there?" he called out timidly. There was no reply. He looked over his shoulder as he turned back to rummage through the refrigerator. He was turning on the stove to heat up his dinner when he heard footsteps on the floor above. He turned around once more to see if anyone was there, but once again there was no one. Clearly shaken, Sora tried to convince himself that it was just the rain on the roof. He took his food into the living room and turned on the television. He flicked through the channels, trying to ignore the nervous nagging feeling in the back of his head.

After a while, he turned the TV off. He glanced over at the clock and saw that it was late. Deciding that he best be off to bed, he stretched and got up. After placing his dishes in the sink, he began his climb up the stairs and to his room. A cold draft greeted him as he opened his bedroom door, and he shivered. That eerie feeling he had before was back.

Sora changed and got ready for bed. After finishing his nightly routine, he sat on his bed, suddenly struck with a feeling of loneliness. He got up and walked over to the floorboard that stuck out just a little higher than all the other floorboards and pried it off. He pulled out a black book with slightly yellow pages. Sitting himself on the floor, he began to flip through the pages he had flipped through so many times before. Looking at the crudely drawn pen sketches made him feel not quite so alone, and he liked that. They were perfectly imperfect. Closed eyes and little misshapen hearts were present in most of the pictures. The sketches were just outlines with no color, except for the occasional touch of red or blue.

He stopped at a drawing he particularly liked. It was of a boy with closed eyes and a content smile holding a heart in his arms. Sora ran his fingers over the boy's face and smiled to himself. With a sigh, he put the sketchbook back and replaced the floorboard and went to bed as the thunder and rain drummed on outside.

-----

A particularly loud thunderclap jolted Sora awake with a gasp. He looked over to the clock on his bedside table, which read 1:12. Sora sighed again as he lay back down. His room was illuminated by another flash of lightning, and that was when he saw the outline of someone in his room. He sat upright and backed himself up against his headboard.

"Shh, calm down," whispered the figure angrily, "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Wh…who are you?" Sora stammered back. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw that it was a boy with long silver hair and green eyes. He smiled at Sora's failed attempt at communication.

"Riku," he said simply.

"…Why?" was the only thing Sora could manage to force out.

"Why? Because I used to live here," he replied. "C'mon, I have something to show you." He opened Sora's bedroom door and looked back at Sora. "I'm not gonna hurt you or anything. Just humor me." Reluctantly, Sora got out of bed to follow his intruder. Riku smiled at him, and then led him down the hall, down the stairs, and to the basement door. He flicked the light on and started down the stairs. Sora was still at the top of the stairs when Riku was halfway down. Riku turned around to look back at him.

"Come on, I'm not gonna hurt you," he coaxed. Hesitantly, Sora started descending slowly and cautiously. Riku led him to the back of the basement and the a large wood door with a padlock on it. He felt around the wall until he found the loose brick and pulled it out. He reached into the gap and retrieved a key, which he used to remove the padlock. The lock fell to the ground with a clang as Riku opened the door to reveal a hidden room.

"I thought…" Sora attempted to stammer

"It never occurred to you to get the lock removed?" Riku laughed. Sora shook his head, dumbfounded.

Riku made a motion for Sora to enter. Inside the room were a couple of shelves filled with various books, a good number of which seemed to be about music. Tacked up on the wall were various photographs and drawing that looked suspiciously like the ones in the sketchbook he had found when he first moved in. On one of the shelves there was an old record player, along with a pile of records. The back corner was littered with sheet music spread all over the floor, along with a music stand and a clarinet.

Sora turned to Riku. "What is all this?"

"It was my studio," he answered, "I think it used to be a bomb shelter or a pantry or something. I found the key when my family first moved in, and I kept it my secret." He ran his hand over one of the shelves, brushing away the thick layer of dust that coated everything. "I used it as my studio because it was out of the way, and no one else ever managed to find it, which meant I could work in peace."

Sora walked over to the shelves, skimming the book titles. He turned his attention to the pile of records, and looked through them. They were primarily jazz, although there were a lot of other artists that Sora had never heard of mixed in. He looked over to the record on the record player, which read 'Duke Ellington'. He found a shoebox tucked away in the corner and pulled the lid off. Inside were numerous pictures. Sora picked one up for closer inspection. The pictures looked technologically unadvanced, and they had lots of blurring around the edges, along with odd colors. They looked absolutely magical and dreamy anyway. They were all pictures of people, and on the bottom of each one was a name scribbled in pen.

"Who are these people?" Sora asked in wonder.

"They were my friends," Riku answered softly. Sora turned around to see him leaning on a wall casually, watching Sora poke around his studio.

Sora only nodded weakly and placed the pictures back. As he stood up the pictures on the wall caught his eye. The pen strokes and style was exactly like the pictures in the sketchbook. "I found a book…" Sora started.

"My sketchbook? I know. The room you're living in used to be my bedroom," Riku finished for him. He sighed, and stood strait. "Come on, I have something else to show you." He turned to leave, but then turned around suddenly and added, "If you ever need to, you can find me here."

This last statement confused and scared Sora. "Wait… What? You're going to be living in my basement?" he cried.

Riku smiled back in response. "You'll understand later," he laughed. He climbed back up the stairs to the main floor. Sora was a little unnerved. Riku was seeming more and more like some sort of crazed serial killer. He followed anyway, despite his better judgment. Riku was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. Once Sora caught up, he led him to the upper level and down the hall opposite Sora's room. He stopped at a door, a room that Sora recognized as the library. Riku turned the doorknob and opened the door, then walked into the room and waited for Sora to follow.

"What's the point of this?" Sora wondered.

"I just need you to get some perspective," replied Riku. He walked over to the far wall and stared at a small expanse of carpet. Sora could almost detect an air of sadness in Riku's eyes. "This…" Riku said softly, "Is where I died."

Sora froze. What had he just said? Riku turned to look Sora in the eyes. "I need you to solve my murder," he whispered. The room got deathly still.

"…What?" Sora choked out. Fear and confusion began to overwhelm him. The darkness around him seemed to thicken, and Riku's image became blurry and unfocused. Soon, darkness had engulfed the entire room, and Sora passed out.

* * *

A/N: Alright, first chapter of my first story. Right on.

So I know that the whole "haunted house with a ghost that needs his/her murder solved" is a little unoriginal and has probably been done before, but how many of those stories have a jazz-clarinet-playing ghost, eh? The title comes from an AIDS benefit album, which you should buy to support people with AIDS. It also has some FANTASTIC musicians on it, like Feist. That woman can SING.

So feedback would be fantastic. I'll hopefully get later chapters up relatively quickly. Especially because my summer break is a little suckish I don't have much to do.

Cheers.


	2. Knotty Pine

The electronic beeping on his alarm clock woke Sora up. He stumbled out of bed and towards his bathroom, and stared at his reflection groggily as he brushed his teeth. He began to remember the dream he had had the night before bit by bit. Sora frowned at how vividly he remembered all of it. With a nervous laugh, he pushed it to the back of his mind as he ran through his morning rituals.

Sora was already running a few minutes behind when he got downstairs, so he opted out of breakfast to save time. As he bent down to put on his shoes, his eyes fell on the basement door. He paused. The idea of going down there to see if there really was a hidden room played around in his head for a bit. Sora shook the thought away. It was silly to think it had been anything more than a bizarre dream.

The sun was still partially hidden by the horizon when Sora began his walk to his bus stop at the end of the road. The weather was the complete opposite of last night. There was not a single cloud in the morning sky. The ground was soft from all the rain, and the budding trees glistened with water droplets illuminated by the sunrise. The beautiful spring weather was forgotten by the tired Sora, and as he arrived at the bus stop he thought about how wonderful it would be in just one month when school finished.

The bus arrived, and Sora settled down in a seat in the back. He closed his eyes and thought about getting some more rest. His mind drifted back to his dream. It was true that there was a door in his basement closed off with a padlock, and the name that had been scribbled on the inside cover of the sketchbook looked like it might have said Riku. But then again, it could have just been his mind filling in the gaps. The dream could have been caused by his loneliness, or as a way for him to some how make the hauntings seem less terrifying. Sora knew full well that the human mind was a bizarre and powerful thing.

Sora nearly forgot to get off the bus once it had rolled into the school parking lot. He pushed through the crowded hallways and to his locker. Kairi was already there waiting for him.

"Good morning," she said with a smile.

"Hrgmm," he replied.

"You look like shit," she laughed.

"Didn't sleep well," he grumbled. He opened his locker and rummaged around for his books, and then realized he had forgotten his calculus homework. He groaned, knowing that his would lower his grade even more. The bell rang, and he began to fumble towards his first class. He was already regretting not eating breakfast.

The rest of the day was not any better. He fell asleep in two of his classes, and had forgotten his lunch. Worse, both Roxas and Kairi were particularly energetic at lunch, making Sora feel even worse. He was grateful to finally be back on the bus home. The dream had completely slipped from his mind.

Sora headed for the kitchen the minute he got through the door. He decided on a sandwich, and ate the entire thing in less than two minutes. Just as he was contemplating going upstairs to take a nap, the sound of music started up. It sounded very much like jazz, and suddenly Sora remembered about the night before. He froze, and stared at the basement door. It seemed to be coming from there. He tensed up, but pushed himself to go down to the basement, albeit very slowly.

The basement door squeaked open, and Sora flicked on the light. Taking a deep breath, he started his descent. The closer he got to the locked door, the louder the music got, until he was right in front of it. His fingers ran over the wall, searching for the loose brick. Once he found it, he pulled it out and retrieved the key. He fumbled with the lock, unable to stop his uncontrollable shaking. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally got the padlock off and the door opened.

Sora's jaw dropped as he looked about the room. It was exactly as he remembered it. He stumbled forward, and saw that there was the Duke Ellington record from last night playing on the turntable, playing away. Tacked up on the walls were the same drawing and photographs, and there was the same clarinet in the same corner.

He remembered that he had read somewhere that it was possible to check if he was really dreaming using a book. He hastily pulled one of the books off the shelf and opened it to a random page. He studied the picture of a man with a crooked trumpet, under which was a caption that read 'Dizzy Gillespie'. Sora shut his eyes tightly and counted to three. He opened them again and looked at the page again. The page had stayed exactly the same. Which meant this was real.

"Oh shit," he whispered to himself. In a panic, he dropped the book and turned around quickly. When he did, he found himself face to face with the same green-eyed, silver-haired boy from the night before with the biggest smile on his face.

"Shocking, isn't it?" Riku said. Sora was at a loss for words. Upon seeing Sora's panic, Riku added, "You know the best way to make this all go away is to try and solve it."

Sora swallowed hard. "Okay," he said with a weak nod, trying not to meet Riku's eyes, "Where do I start?"

"Here. I mean, what better way to start an investigation than to get to know the victim? Think of this as one of those cheesy cop shows you always watch," Riku said with a cheeky smile.

"Alright. So… can you tell me about yourself, then?" Sora said.

Riku laughed. "Um, no. You have to figure that out yourself. I mean, it's me, so anything I tell you would be biased. I _can_ help you, though."

Sora grumbled softly to himself. Riku was doing nothing to win him over. After all, he was really doing him a favor by solving his murder. He decided to start with the bookshelf. "You have a lot of books about music," he commented.

Riku's face instantly lit up. "Yeah. Music was really my thing. I mean, I did a little bit of drawing, but it pretty much paled in comparison."

"There's a lot of jazz…" Sora prompted again.

"Well, yeah. If you want to _really_ appreciate the wonders of any modern music, then you've got to know at least something about jazz. I mean, it pretty much revolutionized everything about music," Riku continued.

"I'm guessing you play clarinet," Sora mumbled.

"Yup."

Sora picked up another book that was particularly large, and read the title aloud, "Gravity's Rainbow."

"Oh, that. I decided I'd give myself a challenge. It's, like, 800 pages or something. I only got an eighth of the way through before… Well…" Riku trailed off sadly.

Sora did not want to upset Riku anymore, so he said nothing, and soon an uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Sora looked around, and noticed that there were no family pictures or awards or anything like that. Then he remembered the box full of photos. He crouched down on the floor and pulled out the box from next to the bookshelf. He gingerly took the lid off, and looked at the massive stack of photos.

He picked up a portion of the stack and began to flip through them. They were mostly portraits of people, with their names scribbled at the bottom of the photo in permanent marker. There were a hand full of people who showed up over and over again, a blonde boy named Demyx, a dark haired girl named Yuffie, a brown haired boy named Leon, and another blonde boy named Cloud.

"These were your friends?" Sora asked, looking up at Riku.

"Yup," Riku said with a nod.

Sora picked up another stack of photos. The photo on top was of a brunette girl with soft eyes and a big kind smile. At the bottom, there was a name carefully written out. Sora's breath hitched as he recognized who it was.

"Aerith…" he choked out, "That's… my mum…"

Riku said nothing, only nodded slowly.

"You knew my mother…" Sora whispered.

"Yes."

"Were you… friends?" Sora asked hoarsely.

"Yes."

The room fell silent once more. Sora was letting it all sink in. His mum and Riku had been friends. Sora slowly went back to rummaging through the box. At the bottom was a photo of a group of people, all with instruments and dressed in tuxedos and dresses.

Riku peered over his shoulder and at the photo. "That was my school's jazz band."

Sora found Riku in the first row with the saxophone players, holding his clarinet. He looked happy, happier than Sora had seen him. His eyes fell on the boy sitting at the piano. His face had been scribbled out.

"Who is this?" Sora asked. Riku said nothing, just stared at the wall. "Riku?" Still, he said nothing, so Sora dropped the topic. He stood up and looked around the room.

"Hey, Riku?"

"Hm?"

Sora took a deep breath, and then asked, "Didn't you see who it was that murdered you?"

"Yes," Riku replied quietly, "but I don't remember. I know it probably doesn't make sense to you that I would forget my death, but I think that the dead aren't obsessed with death the way the living are. I'm actually pretty sure that a lot of people had never heard of me until my murder showed up in the paper. But it's different for me. It's my story, and it's better to think about my life rather than my death. It's not easier, but it's better."

"Oh," Sora replied softly.

"You know," Riku continued, "in New Orleans, they would only mourn someone's death for something like an hour, and then they would have these big parties that would last for days where they would celebrate the person's life. That's what I wish people remember. I don't want all the people I knew in my life to think about my dead body, alone in this house, I want them to remember all the things I did."

Sora looked into his eyes, and saw something that he could not name for a split second before it was gone. "So you don't even remember a few things about what happened that would help me out?"

Riku shook his head sadly. "It used to be all I could think about, but now I can't even remember the last hour of my life."

Sora sighed. "So how am I going to solve this?"

"The library has records of everything. You could probably find some old newspaper articles there," Riku offered.

"Fine," Sora sighed. More work. "Could you at least help me a little bit? I mean, I don't even know your full name, or when it was you were alive."

"Riku Eaton. I would have graduated in 1989. I was just one month away…"

"That's it?" Sora grumbled.

"Afraid so," Riku laughed.

Sora looked at his watch and saw that it was late. The library usually closed before he could get to it after school, so he would have to play hookie the next day.

"You know, I'm doing you a favor, and you're making this a lot harder than it should be," Sora moaned.

Riku laughed. "Yeah, whatever. But in all seriousness, the anniversary is this Monday. It would be nice to have a little closure this time around."

Sora sighed once more, then got up, and closed and locked the door and walked upstairs. He would pick up his investigation tomorrow, but now he was feeling tired and hungry.

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A/N: Blergh, it took me forever to get this up. I was actually on vacation for like a week, so that didn't help.

So it's starting off a little slow. The pace should pick up a lot in the later chapters. I was also a little less organized on this one, but I was kinda in a rush to get it done. The other chapters will be better, I promise.

Adios for now.


	3. Fake Palindromes

Sora's eyes fluttered open. A few soft tendrils of sunlight fell across his room, cast by the rising sun. He propped himself up on one elbow. Riku was sitting at the end of his bed, watching him. He smiled at Sora.

"Good morning," he said cheerily.

Sora grunted in response and lay back down. Riku was creeping him out a little bit. Had he been watching him all night? He could hear his mother shuffling around downstairs.

"C'mon," Riku coaxed, "You've got to get to the library." Sora only grunted in response. He would rather stay in bed and sleep.

Footsteps echoed down the hallway, followed by Sora's bedroom door creaking open. His mother stood at the doorway and called out, "Sora, what are you doing? School started twenty minutes ago!"

Sora looked at Riku nervously. Riku caught on, and reassured him, "Don't worry, she can't see me."

Sora propped himself on his elbow again. "Sorry, mum. I'm just not feeling very good," he grumbled, trying to sound sick.

His mother rushed over to his bed and laid her hand over his forehead. "Well you don't have a fever… I'll call the school."

Riku's eyes were intently glued to Aerith. "She's just like she was twenty years ago. Only… sad."

Sora got an idea. "Mum…"

She paused and turned around. "Yes?"

"Did you know Riku Eaton?" he asked.

She smiled sadly. "Just try to get some rest. We can talk about it later." She left the room and shut the door. Sora looked over to Riku. A pained expression was on his face as he stared at the doorway where she had been.

"Even after everything, she's still so kind," Riku whispered so softly that Sora could barely hear what he was saying.

"So… You never told me how you knew my mum," Sora said slowly, trying not to upset Riku.

"We were friends. In high school," Riku responded half-heartedly.

"That's all you're going to tell me?" Sora said angrily, "I'm doing you a favor here, and you're not gonna help me at all?"

Riku turned from the doorway to look Sora in the eyes. "If you really want to know, why don't you ask her yourself?" he retorted.

"It'd be easier if you just told me," Sora grumbled under his breath as he got out of bed and pulled his clothes on. Riku had been polite enough to give him privacy while he changed, and had vanished when Sora turned around.

The thud of the front door told him that his mum had left. He made his way down to the kitchen to look for breakfast. He pulled out a box of frozen waffles and put them in the toaster. When he turned around, he found Riku sitting at the kitchen table, watching him. Their eyes met, and Riku smiled at him. Sora gave him a weak smile in return. He put his waffles on a plate and went to sit with Riku at the table and began to eat his breakfast.

They sat in silence for a while before Riku spoke, "Sora, who's your father?"

Sora grunted with a mouthful of waffles. "Why, are you jealous of him? What, were you like secretly obsessed with my mum?"

Riku looked taken aback. "Nothing of the sort… Although I have no idea how someone so nice could give birth to someone as rude as you," he sneered.

Sora glared at him angrily. Neither of them spoke for the remainder of Sora's breakfast. He got up and got ready to leave. Just as he was about to leave, he heard Riku call after him.

"Good luck," he said.

"Yeah, whatever," Sora grumbled, and slammed the door shut.

It was wonderfully sunny outside, and the sunlight was warm on Sora's skin, but they did nothing to lighten his mood. Who was Riku to think that he could be so arrogant when Sora was trying to help him? Riku's family had probably been rich or something, and he had probably been one of _those_ privileged types. Sora decided he was not going to think about Riku anymore because the weather was much too nice to waste time on him, no matter how beautiful those stupid green eyes and that silly silver hair were.

The world around him was lush and green with the spring plant life. The birds in the trees were singing brightly, but Sora preferred to listen to his iPod. He pulled it out of his pocket and put his headphones on and began to lose himself in his music. Sora's mind began to drift back to Riku, and what he had said about music being his whole life. Sora could relate, at least a little bit. Whenever he listened, he could almost feel himself becoming the music, the drums his pulse, the bass line his calm and even breaths, the backgrounds his bones and muscles, the harmonies and melodies his inner thoughts and his actions, the form his was his life playing out. The only problem was, he was pretty sure he was still stuck at the introduction of what was playing out to be a weak and boring song. What had he done with his life? Nothing. He had done absolutely nothing. Riku, on the other hand, and been a skilled musician and a good artist, and even though his life was cut short, he had still done so much more than him. What if his life went the way of Riku's, and what if he died tomorrow? There would be nothing to show for all of it, only bad grades and next to no friends. Riku had had so many friends, Sora could tell by all the photos of the many different people, all collected and organized neatly into a little shoebox. He probably had even more friends that just the ones Sora had seen.

In the end, Sora had spent so much of his life being miserable, although, given the circumstances, that was a little understandable. He had never known his father, or even who his father was, he and his mother had moved around so much that he could never keep friends for very long, and his mother worked so much that he barely got to see her. He had spent so much of his life alone that now it was just easier for him to continue to be alone.

Sora had been so deep in thought that he almost walked right past the library. It was a weathered and aged stone building, but it still stood strong and proud along a street filled with buildings with modern and much more refined architecture. Sora walked up the concrete walkway riddled with rebellious weeds rising above the cold asphalt through the web of cracks that worked its way through the pavement. Sora pushed open the stately glass doors and was greeted by the musty scent of aged paper. Everything in the place was gray. The bricks in the walls were gray, the carpets were gray (although Sora suspected that they had not started off that way), and even the expression on the face of the old librarian was gray. This was why Sora never liked coming to the library.

He asked the librarian where the records were kept, and she grouchily pointed him to the back of the library. He found himself faced with a monstrously tall wall of stacks upon stacks of newspapers. "Oh shit," Sora whispered to himself in disbelief. At the very least they were organized by date. Riku had said he had been murdered twenty years ago from Monday night. That would have been April 4th, 1989. Sora decided to start with the newspapers from the day after.

After a while of looking, Sora found the newspapers with the proper dates. Riku was right on the front page, a black and white photo of his green-eyed ghost-boy holding up a medal and wearing the biggest smile he could muster graced the front page, directly under the morbid headline. _Local Boy Murdered In Cold Blood_, it said. He skimmed the article. It told him that Riku had been stabbed in his house's library at approximately midnight, and that the police had no suspects. It went on to talk about how Riku had been a straight-A student, and all his accomplishments as a musician and in la cross. Riku would have liked that part, Sora thought to himself. It was a reflection of what he had once been, not how he had ended.

Sora spent the next hour looking through all the newspapers for any mention of Riku. There were a couple of updates on the investigation, but there was never any suspects mentioned. Sora sat back in his chair and sighed heavily. This was getting to be extremely tedious. He got up to stretch, and decided he'd take a break. He wondered if the library kept tapes of the high school's band performances. After asking the librarian, Sora found the back room with all the old tapes. There was a little section blocked off for the school videos. Sora picked up one of the tapes, and written on the label was _Union High Jazz Band, April '89._ It had been taped right before Riku's death.

The library had a policy against checking out archived tapes, but luckily Sora spotted a television in the corner room. He closed the door and put the tape into the VCR and hit play.

The frame started off out of focus, but was quickly adjusted by the cameraman. It was pointed at a stage with its big billowy blue curtains closed. The curtains began to open, revealing the band. Sora spotted Riku right away. His silver hair stood out. His eyes stared out into the audience, and he looked a little nervous. One of his band mates introduced the song, and then kicked off the band. They sounded really good, particularly for a high school band. Sora listened intently to every note, every glissando and every inflection. Then, it was time for Riku's solo. He began to play, and Sora was completely mesmerized. Riku's fingers glided effortlessly over the clarinet keys, fabricating an intoxicatingly deep melody. Sora was fixated on Riku's face as he played, and noticed how he seemed to have lost himself in the music. His eyes were shut tightly, his brow furrowed, and Sora knew that in that instant Riku had achieved a sort of happiness and completion that he would never know, the kind that came from becoming a part of something bigger than he could ever dream to be. It was one of the most beautiful moments Sora had ever been witness to.

Riku's solo ended, and the band went through another chorus before finally ending the song. Sora stopped the tape, and the screen went dark. He sat there in silence, staring at the empty screen. He understood now. Riku was beautiful, and not just on the outside. He could create something so touching, and Sora never would. To Sora, Riku's death became even more tragic in that instant. Whoever had killed him had killed something wonderful, had robbed the world of part of its magic.

Sora remembered the photo Riku had of the band, and the piano player with the blacked out face. Sora pressed play, and tried desperately to get a good view of the piano player's face. Unfortunately, the tape was twenty years old and blurry. No matter how hard he tried, he could not get a good look at his face.

Sora finally gave up, and ejected the tape from the machine. He returned to the archive, and then went back to his desk to put away the newspapers. He began organizing them when he picked up a newspaper that he did not remember taking out. It was dated exactly forty years ago from Tuesday, and the front page had an article about a teenage boy's murder, on the same day as Riku's. Sora's heart stopped when he saw that it had been in his house.

Sora began reading the article franticly. The boy's name had been Marluxia, his body had been found in the house's library at approximately midnight. The only difference was that they had found the murderer. His name was Xigbar, and he had been Marluxia's friend for ten years.

Sora jammed the newspapers back on the shelf and left the library in a hurry. He walked back onto the walkway and back to the sidewalk towards his house. There was an endless stream of questions swimming around his head as he walked as quickly as he could. He was completely lost in his thoughts when he heard a familiar voice from behind him.

---------

Well, this took me forever.

Hopefully I'll get my ass in gear and move a little quicker on the next few chapters.

I'm really super lazy.


End file.
